I'm Here
by caffeineisthenewblack
Summary: Co-written with A Star In My Universe. Red & Nicky face the devastating consequences of Red's fate after season 6. "Nicky's hand still held onto Red's blue uniform, yet another thing that kept them separate."


**AN: I know it's been a long time, folks. This story is how Red & Nicky deal with the consequences of Red's fate in season 6 and was co-written with my pal, A Star In My Universe. Feel free to give her all the love if you feel inclined enough to leave a review!**

Red stared at the wall in front of her. She knew these four walls inside out by now. Every crack, every discoloration of the paint, every single oddity. And she knew why they called it the hole. She had lived in some shit places before, where the roof leaked or where they simply didn't earn enough to put the heating on, but she'd always had her family. Even in Litchfield, she'd always had her girls right next to her when things were going south. Now she had nothing, if you discounted the voice in her head telling her how badly she'd fucked up.

Red scrambled to her feet as she heard footsteps. It wasn't mealtime, and no-one came to visit down here. It only meant two things; someone was coming in, or someone was going out. Hearing only one set of footsteps, hope swelled in Red's chest for the first time in a long time. She placed her hands on the door, willing someone to shout her name.

The annoying whistling that accompanied the footsteps told her it was Hellmann, and she despised the sadistic ass, but she'd have gone with anyone provided she could have left.

But the yelling of her name never came. Instead, he called, "Mendoza! Get up. You're leaving."

Red groaned. The woman who'd once stolen her kitchen had proven to be a worthy ally down here, and she didn't want to let her go. Truthfully, she was afraid that she'd go insane down here. She already felt her mind losing its sharpness. Before she knew what she was doing, her fists were banging on the hard metal of her door.

"Shut the fuck up, inmate!" Hellmann called back.

Red hammered on the door one final time. The stinging that came from her bloody knuckles didn't even phase her. It was a welcome change from the mental anguish. Physical pain, she could handle. She knew that from giving birth to three children. But mental pain had a way of chipping away at you, and had no clear end in sight.

"Mendoza, tell her! Tell her what I said!" She ignored the warning from the CO. Her tolerance for them had taken a nosedive. After all, she'd been let down time and time again. She'd been fucking scalped. What more could they do to her? _Kill her?_ Piscatella had certainly tried. Red shook her head. Without her boys, without her family, and without Nicky, death didn't seem like such a bad option. But she couldn't do that to her children. Especially not the one waiting, so close yet so far, and needing her. Worrying about her. Red swallowed hard, pushing down the tears. "Tell her that I'm okay, Gloria!"

 _Was_ she okay? Red didn't know. When she'd first arrived at Litchfield, "okay" had seemed like a foreign concept. How could anybody be okay in a place like that? In _prison?_ But she had found her place and settled down. Found a family. _Here_ , though? Red didn't know. Maybe if she only had a few years left, she could have kept her head down and got through it. Stolen moments with Nicky here and there to make it bearable. But with ten years left?

 _Fucking Frieda._

That woman had taken away her chance - and perhaps, her _only_ chance, after the stunt she pulled - to see her grandchildren. She'd added _ten fucking years_ to her sentence! Along with all of the other traitors she'd considered family, she'd robbed her of everything. And now, down in the SHU, she didn't even have the one thing that made getting up in the morning worth it - Nicky. Her rage softened a little as she thought of her girl.

No. Red d _idn't_ know if she was okay, but she knew it was what Nicky needed to hear.

Nicky dragged the mop against the tile floor. With every swipe, the same thought ran through her head. _Where is Red?_ The action had become almost ritualistic over the past few weeks. The cleaning didn't distract her from her worries - far from it, actually - but it was at least a change to laying in her bunk and having the same thought running through her mind like a broken record. Of course she knew _where_ Red was, but that was even more worrying; the SHU was no place to be for anyone, let alone Red with her bad back. Nicky bit her lip. Why hadn't they let her out yet? The filth of gen pop swirled underneath her feet as she cleaned. Was that blood? She didn't care enough to find out. Lately, she had a one-track mind.

The sound of metal grinding finally distracted Nicky from her thoughts. She knew that sound. Keys jingling on a CO's belt. The _click-click-click_ of handcuffs being removed. Someone being brought back from somewhere else in the prison, their gait a stiff shuffle after being restrained by the ankles. Her heart leapt. Nicky's shaking fingers curled tightly around the splintering wooden handle of the mop and she closed her eyes.

Through the noise of other inmates, Nicky listened intently. She knew that shuffle. She knew that soft groan of complaint as she rubbed her wrists where the handcuffs had been. Dropping the mop, Nicky flew to the metal railing to look down. All of her hope wilted as she spotted the new arrival and she gripped the cold metal to steady herself. Mendoza stared up at her, pity in her brown eyes. Nicky looked away. Hot tears stung Nicky's eyes and she stared at the spot where Mendoza had entered from, her eyes burning into the ugly wall. Maybe, Nicky reasoned, as a crushing disappointment pounded in her chest, maybe if she stared at the spot long enough, Red would appear. Her tears blurred the spot which stayed empty, like how Nicky felt on the inside. An unforgiving, cold emptiness. Nicky shook her head. _Where is she?_

After that sadistic fuck, CO Hellmann, finally left Gloria alone, Nicky momentarily snapped out of her melancholy and snuck over to her cell, stepping in without hesitation.

Surprisingly, Gloria wasn't stewing, Nicky thought she would be, but stretching. She looked up at Nicky as she lifted her arms above her head. "Jesus Christ, Nichols. What the fuck are you doing in here, huh? I just got out of that hell hole and I don't plan on going back anytime soon!"

Nicky shrugged. "We have a few minutes. Hellmann doesn't usually come back over here to make rounds again for awhile and Copeland is probably taking her afternoon snooze by now." She pauses and swallows hard. "Ya okay, Mendoza?"

Gloria shrugged. "I'll be fine. That place does try to fuck with your head but I'm good."

Nicky fidgeted where she stood, wanting to ask if she has been able to talk to Red at all but not wanting to come off as unsympathetic towards Gloria's own predicament.

Gloria sighed. "She's okay, Nichols."

Nicky looked up at her. "Is she? Ya sure about that? Why isn't she out of there yet? Why couldn't she come back too?"

Gloria shrugged. "Can't answer that. But she was right next to me and we would talk a lot."

Nicky sighed. "I hate that she's still there! I know she made a mistake but she's just...she hasn't been herself for a long time..."

"I think her behavior has to do with the extra 10 years she just got in this place. She barely even had a role in the riot and had to take a fall. Hasn't been an easy thing for her to swallow..."

Nicky was no longer listening. _Ten more years? No! That couldn't be true!_ "Ten more years? What the fuck are you talking about?!"

Gloria stopped talking and her face took on an expression of confusion. "Yea? You didn't know?"

Nicky shook her head, almost frantically. "I knew she probably would have to sign a plea but not for ten more fucking years!" She grabbed her head in frustration, her hands grabbing at her messy curls.

Gloria reached over and put her hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, kid. I thought you knew."

Nicky looked up at her, tears in her eyes. "It's all my fault. She's always taken care of me and I did this... I ratted her out and now she's..."

Gloria shook her head and grabbed her chin with her right hand. "No, Nichols. No. Red doesn't blame you. She told me herself that she knows you had to do what you had to do."

The tears came then. "She doesn't deserve this! They have to let her out of there. I need to see her. I have to make sure she's okay..."

"Get out of there, Nichols or it's a shot!"

Nicky wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands and jumped back out of Gloria's cell at the sound of Coleman's voice boomed at her from below.

"I got ya, I got ya!" She glanced back at Gloria once more and nodded when Gloria said "She will get out soon, Nichols."

And with that she walked away, continuing her hellish task with the empty cell next door.

Two more weeks had passed and Red was still stuck in the hole. Nicky was beginning to go stir crazy with worry. She would ask any CO she saw if they knew anything about when Red would be coming back. Wasn't a month long enough? How much more could she take, being cooped up down there all alone?

It was just after breakfast on a Wednesday morning, and Nicky mopped the floors of the halls in C-Block, as she did every other morning. She began to dread walking passed the cell that once held Red in it. It served as a reminder for her guilt and made her long for peeling vegetables with Red at camp again. Anything to go back in time. Anything to get Red out of this mess she was in.

As she approached the elusive cell, she stopped in her tracks and blinked rapidly a few times. There was Red, sitting on the edge of her bunk. She was staring at the wall, a blank expression on her face.

Nicky swallowed hard and slowly walked into the room. She hoped this was real. She hoped this wasn't just her mind playing tricks.

"Red?"

Red blinked and looked up at her, the same blank expression on her face, and that's when Nicky knew that this was real. Red was back.

Her feet moved before she realized it, and she shuffled her way to Red and knelt down on the floor beside her. She cupped her hands around Red's face, and her eyes filled with tears.

Her voice cracked with devastation. "I missed you, Ma."

Red's own eyes filled, and Nicky finally reached down and wrapped her arms around her waist, pulling her close. Red sagged against her and then she felt those familiar arms she had missed more than anything wrap around her, too.

Red's hands came up to play with her hair, a familiar gesture and she closed her eyes, burying her face into her neck.

If a CO interrupted them now she would probably be okay with murdering them.

When she felt Red's body shudder and heard a shattering sob escape from her, she kissed her cheek. "I'm here now, Ma. I'm right here. Okay? I'm always going to be here."

Her own face scrunched up and she suddenly found herself bursting into tears. She never wanted to let her go. She contributed to Red's fate and she didn't think she would ever be able to forgive herself for it.

Red took Nicky's face into her hands. Two doe eyes stared up at her, begging for some kind of response. It was cruel to not say anything back, but for the first time in her life, Red was struggling for the right words to say.

Instead of saying anything, Red wiped Nicky's tears away. The watery-eyed expression she was greeted with reminded her so much of her boys when they came to her with skinned knees as children, and she could have wept even more. Would a band-aid fix this? She doubted it.

She brushed tendrils of hair from Nicky's eyes, cupping her chin in her hand. She stroked Nicky's hair, the blonde letting her head fall into Red's lap.

Nicky jumped as a loud _clang_ forced her to open her eyes. CO Hopper stared down at them both, interrupting the first private moment they'd had together in longer than either of them cared to remember.

"Nichols, you're out of bounds." He raised his eyebrows.

Nicky raised her head from Red's lap but didn't make any movement. Red prodded her with her knee but all that gained was a glare.

"Move, inmate! Now." Hopper's tone grew angrier as Nicky openly defied him. Red was growing worried not for herself but for her daughter, and swallowed hard. Nicky's hand still held onto Red's blue uniform, yet another thing that kept them separate.

Nicky's mind was elsewhere. Sitting on the floor next to Red as she wept took Nicky back to a much darker place. She could still hear the screams of her friends as Piscatella ripped away every shred of Red's dignity. She looked up at her mother.

"Please don't give up, Red," Nicky whispered. She held onto Red's hand as she came to her feet. She barely noticed Hopper as she bent to kiss Red's cheek. "I know you don't think so...but I need you."

Red nodded stiffly. To anyone else, she would have looked cold as she kept one eye on Hopper and one eye on Nicky. But Nicky knew otherwise as she felt the squeeze of Red's hand.

Red steadied her own breathing as Nicky prolonged their goodbye. Her girl had waited for her. She was still waiting, even now, for a response. Red knew she had to give her one, but didn't know how to say goodbye. She _never_ wanted to say goodbye to Nicky. She knew two languages, yet couldn't find the words to placate her daughter. She felt utterly useless.

"Ma, please...please." Nicky pleaded with Red, one last ditch effort to gain some response.

Red locked eyes with Nicky. "I love you, _malyshka_." She brushed her thumb against the back of Nicky's hand, then let it go. It fell limply by Nicky's side. Her heart was breaking to see her daughter leave, but she had to put her first, no matter her own feelings. She hadn't just gained ten years so Nicky could add to her own sentence by clinging to her. She wasn't going to drag Nicky down with her.

Nicky, having finally gained the response she'd always wanted to hear, gave a swift nod. "I love you too, Ma," she whispered.


End file.
